The present invention relates to an improved method and apparatus for managing saving of tone control data, such as tone color control data, which are suitably applicable, for example, to electronic musical instruments.
There have heretofore been known electronic musical instruments which generate various percussion instrument tones in response to user""s beating on pads or the like. Generally, these electronic musical instruments are arranged in such a manner that parameters of tones corresponding to the pads can be set by a user as necessary and also individual tone color data can be saved in a flash memory or the like on the basis of predetermined user operations.
However, the above-mentioned conventional technique presents the following problems. Namely, if the user turns off the electronic musical instrument without saving newly-created tone color data, the tone color data, having been set with considerable amounts of time and effort, would be lost. Further, in case the user, by mistake, turns off the electronic musical instrument during data saving, the already-stored data in the flash memory or the like would be destroyed, which, at the worst, necessitates initialization of the data.
In view of the foregoing, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a management method and apparatus which can save tone control data, such as tone color control data, safely and reliably while still maintaining high tone quality.
In order to accomplish the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a method for managing saving of tone control data, which comprises the steps of: receiving a performance event; instructing, in accordance with the performance event received by the step of receiving, generation of a tone based on tone control data stored in a first storage device; receiving a setting event; changing, in accordance with the received setting event, the tone control data stored in the first storage device; and transferring, within an idle time period when operations by the steps are not being carried out, the tone control data, changed by the step of changing, from the first storage device to a non-volatile second storage device.
The present invention also provides a method for managing saving of tone control data, which comprises the steps of: updating tone control data stored in a first storage device; storing the tone control data, updated by the step of updating, into a non-volatile second storage device, the second storage device storing a plurality of sets of the updated tone control data in order in which the tone control data have been updated by the step of updating; and storing, into the second storage device, identification information indicative of a newest one of the plurality of sets of the updated tone control data stored in the second storage device.
The present invention also provides a method for managing saving of tone control data, which comprises the steps of: updating tone control data stored in a first storage device; transferring the tone control data, updated by the step of updating, to a non-volatile second storage device; receiving a performance event; suspending, in response to reception of the performance event, a transfer of the tone control data being carried out by the step of transferring at the time of the reception of the performance event; instructing, in accordance with the received performance event, generation of a tone based on the tone control data stored in the first storage device; and resuming the transfer of the tone control data suspended by the step of suspending, after completion of the tone generation corresponding to the performance event.
The present invention also provides a method for managing saving of tone control data, which comprises the steps of: receiving a setting event; changing, in accordance with the received setting event, tone control data stored in a first storage device; and transferring the changed tone control data from the first storage device to a non-volatile second storage device, on condition that reception of the setting event has intermitted for more than a predetermined time.
The present invention also provides a method for managing saving of tone control data, which comprises the steps of: receiving a setting event in a predetermined one of a plurality of operation modes; changing, in accordance with the received setting event, tone control data stored in a first storage device; and transferring the changed tone control data from the first storage device to a non-volatile second storage device, when the predetermined operation mode is changed to another one of the operation modes.
The above-mentioned tone control data may be tone color data, or any other desired sort of data.
The present invention may be constructed and implemented not only as the method invention as discussed above but also as an apparatus invention. Also, the present invention may be arranged and implemented as a software program for execution by a processor such as a computer or DSP, as well as a storage medium storing such a program. Further, the processor used in the present invention may comprise a dedicated processor with dedicated logic built in hardware, rather than a computer or other general-purpose type processor capable of running a desired software program.
While the embodiments to be described herein represent the preferred form of the present invention, it is to be understood that various modifications will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the invention. The scope of the present invention is therefore to be determined solely by the appended claims.